516654

research-article2014
HUM0010.1177/0018726713516654Human RelationsHarding et al.

human relations

human relations
2014, Vol. 67(10) 1213­–1237
Who is ‘the middle manager’? © The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0018726713516654
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Nancy Harding
University of Bradford, UK

Hugh Lee
University of Bradford, UK

Jackie Ford
Leeds University Business School, UK

Abstract
Middle managers occupy a central position in organizational hierarchies, where they
are responsible for implementing senior management plans by ensuring junior staff
fulfil their roles. However, explorations of the identity of the middle manager offer
contradictory insights. This article develops a theory of the identity of the middle
manager using a theoretical framework offered by the philosopher Judith Butler and
empirical material from focus groups of middle managers discussing their work. We
use personal pronoun analysis to analyse the identity work they undertake while talking
between themselves. We suggest that middle managers move between contradictory
subject positions that both conform with and resist normative managerial identities,
and we also illuminate how those moves are invoked. The theory we offer is that
middle managers are both controlled and controllers, and resisted and resisters. We
conclude that rather than being slotted into organizational hierarchies, middle managers
constitute those hierarchies.

Keywords
control, identities, interpellation, Judith Butler, middle managers, resistance

Corresponding author:
Nancy Harding, School of Management, University of Bradford, Emm Lane, Bradford BD9 4JL, UK.
Email: n.h.harding@bradford.ac.uk
1214 Human Relations 67(10)

Introduction
Middle managers maintain a central position in organizational hierarchies, are responsible
for implementing senior management strategies, and exercise control over junior staff.
However, available evidence on who the middle manager ‘is’, or how they are ‘becoming’
(Thomas and Linstead, 2002), is contradictory. This article aims to contribute to under-
standing of middle managerial identity through exploring the identity work they
undertake when talking to each other. We use the theoretical framework offered by Judith
Butler’s theories of identity constitution, in particular her development of Althusser’s
(1971) model of interpellation, and analyse focus group conversations involving mid-
dle managers discussing their work of implementing a strategy. They drew on three
discourses, which we call the rational/managerialist, critical/managerialist and critical/
resistant. Each discourse involves both control and resistance. Using personal pronoun
analysis to explore their discussions, we illuminate the subtle and nuanced ways in which
they move between the various subject positions governed by each discourse, and show
how complex and contradictory is middle managerial identity. That is, their identities
emerge from their being subjects and objects of control and subjects and objects of resist-
ance. This leads us to suggest that rather than being located in a central position in organi-
zational hierarchies, the middle manager performatively constitutes those hierarchies. We
begin by outlining the literature that discusses middle management.

Who is the middle manager? Current perspectives

Middle management is defined as a position in organizational hierarchies ‘between the
operating core and the apex’ (Mintzberg, 1989: 98) whose occupants are ‘responsible for
a particular business unit at [this] intermediate level of the corporate hierarchy’
(Uyterhoeven, 1972: 136) that comprises ‘all those below the top level strategic manage-
ment and above first-level supervision’ (Dopson and Stewart, 1990: 40). There is thus a
consensus in definition. However, discussions about the function of middle management
lack such agreement: a body of literature states what they should do; empirical studies
show what they actually do; and a third group of authors are concerned about the effect
of the role on the people who occupy it.
First, there is a body of literature that is replete with prescriptive statements of what
middle managers should do (e.g. Floyd and Wooldridge, 1992) and the skills they must
possess in order to carry out their function of receiving and then deploying strategic plans
(Fenton-O’Creevy, 1998). They should be expert problem solvers (Delmestri and
Walgenbach, 2005) who ensure radical changes are successfully implemented (Huy,
2001), notably through ‘managing the emotional states of their employees’ (Huy, 2002:
32; see also Clegg and McAuley, 2005; Currie and Procter, 2001). Human resource man-
agement tasks per se are not prioritized by middle managers (Hall and Torrington, 1998;
Hope-Hailey et al., 1997), although a large body of critical literature implies that it is they
who are responsible for identifying ever more subtle ways of controlling how junior staff
work. It is argued that they use both direct control mechanisms (Braverman, 1974) and
increasingly subtle means of control such as manipulation of both identity (Alvesson and
Willmott, 2002) and personal relations (Costa, 2012); and also governing by expectation
Harding et al. 1215

(Tengblad, 2002), mandating that work should be enjoyable (Fleming and Sturdy, 2010),
or using training to prescribe normative identity processes (Andersson, 2012).
Second, although much remains unknown about the strategic role of middle managers
(Balogun and Johnson, 2005: 1574), research contradicts presumptions of what they
should do. They appear to be ‘more than passive linking pins, transmitting senior man-
ager instructions unquestioningly down the organization’. That is, they ‘are critical
mediators that . . . knowledgably connect the operational core with the upper echelons in
a way that shapes strategic direction’ (Rouleau and Balogun, 2007: 4; see also Dutton
et al., 1997; Mintzberg, 1989; Nonaka, 1988). They edit and make sense of strategic
plans in ways not intended by senior management (Balogun, 2006), such that ‘top-down
intended change [becomes] an emergent and unpredictable process’ (Balogun and
Johnson, 2005: 1574). It is not strategy documents that influence how middle managers
work, but ‘lateral and largely informal everyday conversational and social practices[,] . . .
storytelling and gossip’ (Balogun, 2006: 41; see also Kotter, 1982), in which multiple
and contradictory perspectives of the same incident are generated (Sillince and Mueller,
2007) so that the ‘meaning of the top-down initiatives emerges bottom-up’ (Balogun,
2006: 43).
Middle managers not only re-interpret strategic plans but they may, like junior staff,
actively resist implementation and ‘reject, re-label, twist, turn or otherwise reshape the
fashions they confront’ (McCabe, 2011: 185f), or indeed resist the importing of new
ideas (Watson, 1994). They may outwardly express enthusiasm about change processes
while covering up ‘profound anxieties’ (Ogbonna and Wilkinson, 2003: 1171), so that
they merely comply with changes rather than promoting them enthusiastically (Jackall,
1988). Thus what middle managers should do and what they can or do do may be very
different things (Johnson et al., 2003). However, recent studies (Courpasson et al., 2012;
Zoller and Fairhurst, 2007) suggest a far more agentive aspect to the middle managerial
role than previously identified. We return to these studies later in the article.
Finally, authors who have explored middle managerial working lives show that their
ambiguous position as a buffer between senior managers and staff (McConville and
Holden, 1999) may subject them to a debilitating precariousness and vulnerability (Sims,
2003). The role was argued to be subject to much change in the closing decades of the
last century: down-sizing and business process re-engineering contributed to career inse-
curity and proletarianization (Rabin, 1999; Scarbrough and Burrell, 1996), and middle
managers’ jobs became increasingly routinized (Redman et al., 1997), their autonomy
reduced, and direct and indirect forms of control over them increased (Ogbonna and
Wilkinson, 2003). Concern about the emotional pain experienced during these change
processes (Ford and Harding, 2003) was echoed more recently by concerns about their
work/life balance (Ford and Collinson, 2011), in a context in which organizations
‘increasingly colonize . . . all the spaces in the [middle] manager’s life[,] with identity as
partner and parent subsumed under the “greedy” discourses of management and organi-
zation’ (Thomas and Linstead, 2002: 88). However, Tengblad’s (2006) warning of the
necessity of understanding continuity as well as change in managerial work is well-
founded – down-sizing and other changes did not dismantle organizational hierarchies
and middle managers continue to have a pivotal role in liaising between senior
management and junior staff.
1216 Human Relations 67(10)

It is therefore impossible to find answers to the question ‘who is the middle manager?’
in existing literature. On the one hand, they can be seen to be vital and loyal lynch-pins
between senior management and junior staff; on the other hand, they obstruct the imple-
mentation of change and are a problem to be addressed. Some argue that they have a
well-established and somewhat powerful position in organizational hierarchies as con-
trollers of junior staff; others argue that they form a cadre that is increasingly subordi-
nated and controlled. A small body of research into middle (not senior) managerial
identities supports the more negative view of their position. Watson (1994, 1996, 2008)
found middle managers oppressed by senior management, unable to sustain their ethical
beliefs, and suffering from ‘personal insecurity, basic human fragility and ordinary
human angst’ (1996: 339). Public sector managers fare little better: while seeking stabil-
ity during organizational change they were ‘losing the plot’ because of questioning about
their worth, and uncertainty about their work and organizational position (Thomas and
Linstead, 2002; Thomas and Davies, 2005a).
Given these contradictory accounts, aiming to find a definitive answer to the question
‘who is the middle manager?’ would be foolhardy. Rather, our aim is to explore the iden-
tity work undertaken by middle managers as they discuss between themselves their work
of translating strategy into practice, so as to contribute to understanding of middle mana-
gerial identities. We turn now to the empirical study we undertook.

The study: Epistemology, theoretical perspective,

methodology and method
Managers in England’s NHS are responsible for implementing the many changes
imposed by government and the Department of Health on a service that is perhaps ‘a
political football’ (Nuffield Trust, 2007). The empirical material we use here comes from
a study of the implementation of one such strategy, talent management, required by the
Department of Health in 2004 (Clake and Winkler, 2006). Our aim was to explore the
work of identity constitution that proceeded as middle managers talked about imple-
menting that strategy. Details of participants and methods are given below.
The epistemological location of this study is poststructuralist and its theoretical home
is identity theory. There is a vast literature on organizational identities, too great to sum-
marize here (see Alvesson et al., 2008; Kenny et al., 2011; Ybema et al., 2009, for recent
overviews of the field) located within a range of theoretical perspectives. The concept of
fixed identities and of the unified, humanist subject is largely eschewed (Alvesson et al.,
2008; Watson, 2008; Ybema et al., 2009) and identity is understood as fluid and malle-
able (Kreiner et al., 2006); fleeting and fragmentary (Bendle et al., 2002); multiple and
contextual (Alvesson, 2000; Ford, 2006); constantly negotiated and renegotiated and
always in the process of becoming (Ashforth, 1998; Tsoukas and Chia, 2002; Watson,
2008). A poststructuralist approach recognizes the influence of power on self-making
(Delbridge and Ezzamel, 2005: 607). Power, in this perspective, is both constraining and
enabling. Identities, subjectivities, selves and subject positions are made available within
discourses that both subjectify (give identity) and subject (constrain and control that
identity) (Butler, 1997b). In this frame, identities are seen as fragmented and fractured,
Harding et al. 1217

multiply-constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic discourses,

practices and positions, and in a constant process of change and transformation (Ashforth,
1998; Gioia et al., 2000; Hall, 1996). Importantly, identities are constituted within circu-
lating discourses so analysis of subjects’ talk facilitates understanding of how discourses
‘speak through’ subjects and facilitate their identities.
Of particular influence in this study is Butler’s appropriation and development of
Althusser’s (1971) model of interpellation that famously outlined a scene in which a
police officer hails a passer-by: ‘hey you there’. The passer-by, in turning to answer the
call, constitutes an identity, in this specific case that of law-breaker. Butler, as with post-
structural theorists more generally, deconstructs the concept of the unitary, humanist
subject. Her work is particularly important in that it offers a practical poststructural poli-
tics for combating processes through which individuals are rendered abject through dif-
ference or otherness. Her stance is summarized thus:

[T]he idea of the unitary subject serves a form of power that must be challenged and undone,
[it] signif[ies] a style of masculinism that effaces sexual difference and enacts mastery over the
domain of life . . . [E]thical and political responsibility emerges only when a sovereign and
unitary subject can be effectively challenged and . . . the fissuring of the subject, or its
constituting ‘difference’, proves central for a politics that challenges both property and
sovereignty in specific ways. (Butler and Athanasiou, 2013: ix)

Both Althusser and Butler argue there must already have been a self that turns in
response to the officer’s hail. Althusser’s (1971) account is that ideology, through interpel-
lation, transforms individuals into subjects. He uses the notion of a temporal succession so
as to make his arguments clear (there is a call, the person turns, and in turning becomes a
subject) but argues these things happen without succession because ideology and the inter-
pellation of subjects are one and the same thing. However, Althusser holds that there is a
distinction between individuals and subjects, in that the individual must be interpellated as
a supposedly free subject in order to accept his/her subjection. This is remarkably similar
to Butler’s (1997b) observation that power subjects and subjectifies; the distinction between
Althusser and Butler is that where Althusser argues that it is capitalism that subjects and
subjectifies, Butler’s position is that it is discourse. Where Althusser’s Marxism might seek
a revolution to bring about political change, Butler seeks changes in the discourses and the
frames through which we know and understand the world. Butler (1993), like Althusser
(1971), distinguishes between the individual or the self and the subject: she, however, clari-
fies the distinction. The self is a holding term, a place-holder possessing the potential to
become numerous subjects through taking up a variety of subject positions. For the purpose
of this article, the place-holding ‘I’ is a body from which the self is called into subject posi-
tions that give identity; that is, identities that are ek-static to or outside of the body from
which I pronounce that I am ‘I’. By ek-static is meant:

. . . one that is outside itself, not self-identical, differentiated from the start. It is the self over
here who considers its reflection over there, but it is equally over there, reflected, and reflecting
. . . [The self] is . . . transformed through its encounter with alterity, not in order to return to
itself, but to become a self it never was. (Butler, 2004: 148)
1218 Human Relations 67(10)

Interpellation, or ‘naming’ in Butler’s reading is, as in Althusser’s (1971) reading,

not a single occurrence. Where for Althusser (1971) it is ideology that always-already
interpellates the subject, for Butler there is a ‘continuous and uninterrupted process to
which we are subjected, an on-going subjection (assujetissement) that is the very oper-
ation of interpellation, that continually repeated action of discourse by which subjects
are formed in subjugation’ (Butler, 1997a: 27). So, there need not be a voice that makes
the call: the call circulates within discourses (Butler, 1990, 1993). There need be (to
continue with Althusser’s example) no police officer – any opaque, indirect reference
that relates to law-keeping may do interpellative duty. In Butler’s terms, the call is re-
iterated, over and over, through discourse, and positions the recipient in subject posi-
tions that are somewhat ek-static to, outside and separate from the place-holding self.
Butler’s development of Althusser’s model helps us explore the performative effect of
being called a (middle) manager. What identity, what subject is produced when some-
one is hailed by their manager thus: ‘hey you, you middle manager’?
The methodology of this study is a qualitative, interview-based, single case study
containing multiple mini-cases (Yin, 2008). As such, it seeks to develop theory rather
than a capacity for prediction (Creswell, 2008; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Silverman,
2006). The method had two stages: interviews with the senior management teams of 34
of the 37 constituent organizations of one of the National Health Service’s then 10
Strategic Health Authorities, and focus group discussions with middle managers in six
of these organizations. This article analyses the focus group discussions. Fieldwork
took place between February and May 2010. We chose (randomly) six of the 34 partici-
pating organizations in which to conduct focus group discussions with managers
involved in implementing the strategy. The organizations were responsible for choosing
participants. Details of participants are given in Table 1:

Table 1. 

Focus group Numbers Details

A 3
B 5
C 5
D 5
E 4
F 3
Female senior nurse managers who have all worked in the
NHS for more than 20 years.
Two general managers and three clinical managers, one of
whom has three years’ work experience, the others more
than 20. Two men and three women.
Four are general managers and one a clinical lead, all of
whom have 20+ years’ work experience. Three women/
two men.
Two general managers, one in her 20s and one much older,
and three clinical managers with long experience, one in
her late 50s. All women.
All general managers from black and ethnic minority staff
groups, three of whom had worked in the NHS for less
than five years. Two women/two men.
Three clinical leads, one nearing retirement. One woman/
two men.
Harding et al. 1219

The focus group protocol explored how this particular strategy was translated into
practice through asking how ‘talent’ was defined, identified and developed. Discussions
lasted 60–90 minutes, were recorded and then transcribed verbatim.

Data analysis: Method and findings

Our theoretical perspective required data analysis methods that would facilitate explora-
tion of the on-going work of identity formation. This required two stages: a data reduction
stage that identified how participants talked about strategy implementation; and in-depth
analysis of that talk to explore how middle managerial identities were constituted.
The first stage of data analysis involved reducing the material to a number of dis-
courses through template analysis, which is designed to be used within a variety of epis-
temological perspectives including poststructuralist (King, 2012). We developed the
initial template after individually analysing one transcript using the a priori themes from
the discussion protocol: defining, identifying and developing ‘talent’. We worked
together to develop and refine the initial template and to use it across all six transcripts.
This stage suggested participants used three over-arching but contradictory discourses
when talking about their job of implementing strategy. The first is what we call a rational/
managerialist discourse that constitutes middle managers as responsible for implement-
ing senior management’s requirements. In contrast, the other discourses resist that role:
the critical/managerialist critiques senior management, while critical/resistant is more
broadly resistant to the requirements of the job. Table 2 provides representative quotes
from each of these discourses.
Our next task was an analysis of how the language used within each discourse
performatively constitutes middle managerial identities. Personal pronoun analysis
(Harding, 2008) facilitates intensive analysis of the moment-by-moment talk that
constitutes subjects and subjectivities. Harding’s model, based on ideas from phe-
nomenology (notably Heidegger), Saussurian linguistics and Freudian psychoanalyti-
cal theory, explores how self/other-references – ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘you’ as first person singular,
‘you’ as second person singular or plural, the first person plurals ‘we’ and ‘us’ –
signify the speaker’s occupation of different subject positions and the constitution of
the self within those positions. Given the theoretical location of this work within
Butler’s theories of identity constitution, we developed this approach to explore how
personal pronouns signify the interpellative calls that constitute identities and subjec-
tivities. Through much experimentation with examples of talk from all the focus
groups, we developed Harding’s (2008) framework so as to facilitate exploration of
interpellation into identities in speakers’ talk. A glossary of the nomenclature follows
in Table 3. At first reading this may seem complex, but the terms and their meaning
will become clearer when they are applied in the next section. However, the founda-
tional principle is that when people refer to themselves in the first person as ‘you’
they are distancing themselves from themselves by using what is a second person
pronoun. This is a signal that the speaker has moved into a subject position that is
somewhat ek-static to the ‘I’. Thus, we can distinguish between ‘self’ and the identi-
ties constituted within, through and between subject positions.
1220 Human Relations 67(10)
Table 2.  Three discourses – examples of empirical material.
Discourse
Conformist/managerialist, that is,
conforming to instructions about
how to implement strategy
Critical/managerialist, that is,
agreeing with the strategy but
disagreeing with the way it is
being implemented
Critical/resistant, that is, critical
of the whole strategy and voicing
opposition to its implementation
Representative material
Focus Group (FG)B: You’re constantly talent spotting because
you’re observing all the time those relationships that you’re
having when you’re working with people and what they’re doing
and how they’re working with things and recognizing at times
actually it’s a real . . . we need to capture that person; they’ve got
skills in that particular area; what can we do with them that will
help?
FGF: I think talent management is finding people with talent. It’s
people and you can find it at all sorts of levels. I did [a course]
. . . and there was a young man [there] . . . who was quite clearly
a quite talented and very interesting young man who is looking
forward to training as a nurse. He’s in his late 20s and you can
spot him at this stage that he’s potentially going to go a very long
way because he does have talent for what he’s doing.
FGD: I think you need, I think what is missing is some sort of
structure to it overall. Or something . . . so it is like you go and
do a course or whatever but then don’t get the opportunity to
put what you have learnt into practice. It is almost like there
needs to be someone coordinating that to allow people to
. . . because then the organization doesn’t benefit from what
individuals have learnt. And six months down the line they are
going to have forgotten about the course that they have done if
you see what I mean.
FGA: Because she knows I am still aggrieved about not being able
to do what I want to do. So she keeps trying to, like, you know
. . . we need to develop you but we can’t afford this so we will do
this instead.
FGC:
Woman 1: Yes and also if you are noticed in the organization,
that is the other thing isn’t it.
Woman 1: Yes absolutely. There has certainly been a culture of
spotting people and then saying . . . but then it has been quite
selective I think. But talent is I suppose by its nature.
Woman 3: The ones who have got the loudest voices really.
[Laughter].
Man: Strutting [Laughs] and preening in the corner [Laughter]
FGE: There is a friend of mine seconded to . . . why do they
. . . she said black people in this organization don’t have a voice.
Why do people when they come into this organization feel like
they have to be subdued? So if you are in an organization where
you are feeling very subdued then why would you suddenly feel
so willing and like an agent of your own change that you are
going to apply for something that is going to help you progress?
You have got to have real ambition and kind of directed kind of
self-development that you are going to say I am going to take
this forward. Otherwise most people say well the culture of
the organization is let’s keep quiet. So I will keep quiet, I will do
my job. But I think the crucial question for this organization is if
there are very few talented BME people sort of at the top, does
that mean that there are no talented people in BME? Well no
clearly not. So then what is happening?
Harding et al. 1221

Table 3.  Glossary for personal pronoun analysis.

I (i1) The embodied place-holder with potential to move into and

out of various subject positions.
I (i2) The placeholder in the act of theorizing about itself (‘I think’).
Me The theory of the self that emerges from i2’s work of
theorizing.
You (y1) Used in the first person signals the appearance of a subject
ek-static to the place-holding ‘I’ (i1); the ‘I’(i1) has been called
and turns, taking up a subject position in which an identity is
constituted that is ek-static to the self.
You (y2) Second person singular or plural – those persons here
present.
You (know) (y3) An inclusive use of the third person plural that seeks
agreement and acceptance of the proposition that follows, by
invoking a knowledge/understanding held in common (common
sense) .
We/our (y4) First person plural. As with y1, signifies the loss or negation of
the self within a group identity.
They/people A disembodied and unidentified collective other – the other (o)
is a generalized other, while the Other (O) is agentive.

Space limits discussion to two ‘worked examples’ chosen to represent the tenor and
content of all the discussions.

Constituting middle managerial identities through talking

about work
Conforming with managerial norms: The rational/managerialist discourse
For much of the time participants discussed implementing strategy as if it were a
straightforward process originating with senior managers’ orders. They were unques-
tioning of their roles when using this, the rational/managerialist discourse that informs
much management theorizing (Tengblad, 2012). Personal pronoun analysis illumi-
nated how, within this discourse, managerial identity (the you) is distinguished from
the ‘I’ but is merged with that of the organization. We illustrate this with an in-depth
analysis of an extract from Focus Group B, whose members had all been identified as
talented, starting 14 minutes into the recording when participants were discussing their
careers:

Female 1: … I don’t have a management background at all apart from managing clinically,
erm, but obviously somewhere the talents you have are recognized, that’s a good thing you
know that that makes you feel valued and it is nice to get involved in other things and I’m
involved in something now that if you’d have asked me 5–6 years ago you’re gonna be
doing this, I’d have said, what are you talking about, you know? And I think that makes this
[pause] you know, better, it makes it exciting and makes it fresh, it keeps it fresh.
1222 Human Relations 67(10)

This statement contains the following personal pronouns:

A I don’t have a management background i1 – the place-holding self.

at all apart from managing clinically
B erm, but
C Obviously somewhere the talents you
have are recognized, that’s a good thing
you know that that makes you feel
valued and it is nice to get involved in
other things
D and I’m involved in something now that
E if you’d have asked me 5–6 years ago
F you’re gonna be doing this, I’d have said
G what are you talking about, you know?
H And I think that makes this
J [Pause] you know, better, it makes it
exciting and makes it fresh, it keeps it
fresh
Hesitation – new theory emerging.
y1 – first person ‘you’ separate from
the placeholding i1, possesses talents.
‘You know’ (y3): seeks support from
those present – everyone knows this.
y1 – feels valued.
i1 – The placeholding self.
y2: you persons here today ‘Asked’
– slip of the tongue.
Me – the I’s theory about who it is.
y1 – the self addressed by a
second person ‘you’ in an imagined
conversation.
i1 – placeholder self.
y2 – the second person in this
imagined conversation.
y3 – ‘you know’ seeking agreement
from the group.
i2 – the placeholder in the act of
theorizing about itself.
Pause – time for thought and
theorizing.
y3 – seeking agreement from the
group.
But the theory that is developed is
unclear: what is this ‘it’ that is fresh
and exciting?

The first person singular ‘I’, the place-holding i1 that is separate from the subject
positions available, appears in lines A, D, F and H: in the form of an earlier self that
is not qualified for its job (line A); a later self that is doing the job (line D); a past
version of the self that is in dialogue with an imagined other (line F); and finally a
thinking I (i2) developing a theory (line H). There are two over-arching versions of
the ‘you’ present: the second person ‘you’ (y2) addressed by the speaker (lines E and
G) who here seems to have powers of seeing into the future; and the first person ‘you’
(y1) (line C). Recall that referring to the self as ‘you’ signifies that the speaker is
constituting an identity within a subject position: here we see that the self that pur-
portedly possesses talents is different from the place-holding i1. There are two pivotal
parts in this speech. The first is in line C, where the interpellative call, from a ‘some-
where’ is mentioned. The second is the conditional ‘if’ followed by a ‘me’ in line E
– here we see the theory of itself that the I develops. In other words, a past self
Harding et al. 1223

remembers an interpellative call and looks to a future self, one different from what
would have been anticipated without that call: the speaker has become something she
never expected to be. There are two pauses for thought, each leading to positive state-
ments: The first (line B) signals a turn away from the self-critical I of the first
statement; the second (line J) leads to a somewhat disconnected train of thought filled
with positive descriptors about the job.
So, we see in this short speech an act of recognition that sets in train the constitution
of a managerial identity. Thus: a clinician walks down a corridor, is called, turns in
response, and in turning becomes a manager. Although she talks about this in positive
terms, her use of personal pronouns illuminates how she somehow separates herself (the
place-holding I) from her managerial subject position.
This first speaker was immediately followed by a man who recounted a similar
instance of interpellation:

1 I (i2) think for me it feels kind of like, you know, (y3) you (y1)
2 can be confident that if you’re (y1) doing your job and you are kind of
3 delivering on things it’s almost like it feels like you get to a certain point and, and
4 it’s almost like, you know, (y3) you (y1) get a tap on the shoulder by the
5 organization to say, you know, (y3) if, if, if opportunities are arising it’s almost like
6 just it feels like the organization is taking a view as to when you’re (y1) ready for
7 that kind of next step kind of every step of the way really

His opening ‘I think’ signals that he is developing a theory about himself offering a
theory from the position of the place-holding self, but he then refers to himself throughout
in the first person ‘you’ (y1) almost as if he is talking about a different person, so illustrat-
ing the distance between the thinking ‘I’ and his managerial subject position (the you, that
is, the not-I). Like the first speaker, he describes the scene of an interpellative call, here in
the form of a tap on the shoulder made by a reified organization, but his account shows
that the call continually recurs (whenever there is an opportunity). So we see in this
account first a clear distinction between the ‘I’ and the managerial not-I, and second, how
the speaker is repeatedly the subject of the call that turns the I into the managerial not-I.
Again, just as with the first speaker, this participant becomes inarticulate when describing
his job: see the numerous hesitations and qualifications in this short speech: ‘kind of’ in
lines one, two and six; ‘like’ in lines one, three (twice) and five; ‘you know’ features three
times; there are three references to ‘feels’ (lines one, three and five). Such inarticulacy,
seen numerous times when speakers use this discourse, indicates a troubling of the ration-
alist/managerialist discourse (Butler, 1990). That is, the discourse and the identities it
constitutes are unstable. If so, the interpellative scene, repeated over and over, becomes: a
person is walking down a corridor and turns in response to a call ‘hey you, you manager’.
In turning, that person responds ‘who, me?’ but finds themselves momentarily uncertain:
who is the subject they should become in order to respond appropriately?
1224 Human Relations 67(10)

Intriguingly, the female manager who spoke next unwittingly put herself in the place
of the interpellator, the person who will identify the talented worker.

1 I (i1) was in a meeting yesterday . . . and our (y2) conversation was

2 about . . . who is out there, who is ready for an opportunity to come and work in
3 those [projects] and so that discussion went round the table of, you know, (y3) who
4 do we (y4) know who’s out there putting their head up above, you know, (y3) ready
5 for an opportunity to do some of that so there is the informal bit of, you know, we (y4)
6 do know that people are out there, you’re (y1) constantly, you know, (y3) talent
7 spotting because you’re (y1) observing all the time aren’t you (y3) those
8 . . . relationships that you’re (y1) having when you’re working with people and what
they’re doing

Here we see that interpellation is a middle manager’s task, so this speaker embodies
the ‘somewhere’ and the ‘tap on the shoulder’ from the first two speakers’ accounts. She
fuses her identity with that of the organization: her strong opening place-holder ‘I’
swiftly disappears into a mass of plural pronouns – ‘our’ conversation’; ‘who do we
know’; ‘we do know’ – that signify individuality has been lost in the plurality that is ‘the
organization’. Similarly, ‘the discussion went round the table’ as if the discussion
existed separately from the speakers, thereby nullifying individual agency. She seems to
separate herself from the organization in lines 6–7 when she used the first person singu-
lar version of the ‘you’ (y1) instead of ‘we’, but she does not refer to herself as ‘I’, so
the organizational identity, of managerial talent spotter, continues to suffuse her identity
as she talks about herself as manager. Note also the distinction between ‘in’ and ‘out’
– those who are ‘in’ are the interpellators of those who are ‘out there’. These references
to ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ signal the spatial dimension of such recognition, further indi-
cating that the managerial self who is ‘inside’ the organization has, it seems, the organi-
zation within them (Harding, 2003; Knights, 1997). This speaker thus illuminates what
the previous speakers had intimated: the imbrication of the organization and the ration-
alist/managerialist self so that the distinction between organization and manager
disappears.
The interpellative scene in this third speaker’s account is one where we stand in the
position of Althusser’s police officer. We know nothing about that police officer save for
his organizational identity. As manager, this speaker too has no identity separate from
that of the organization she represents.
These three speakers encapsulate how participants constitute identity when speaking
through a rational/managerialist discourse that accepts without question the middle man-
ager’s task of translating strategy into practice. That is, they respond to an interpellative
call by ‘the organization’. In turning, they move into a managerial subject position, a
managerial not-I, that is ek-static to the place-holding I. This managerial ‘you’ is merged
with the organization and so middle managerial identity is inseparable from the organiza-
tion. But the rationalist/managerialist discourse is troubled, so middle managerial iden-
tity is somewhat uncertain, as we explore further below. We turn now to the other two
discourses.
Harding et al. 1225

Resisting strategy implementation: Critical/managerialist

and critical/resistant
Participants drew on two discourses that resist the rational/managerialist identity. In one
they were critical of senior managers but not their own role (critical/managerialist), and in
the other they were critical of their managers and their own role. We illuminate these dis-
courses with an extract from Focus Group C that comprised three women and two men,
all identified as talented. The sequence analysed here exemplifies not only the distinc-
tions between the different discourses, but also how they emerge, are silenced and re-
emerge as the conversations progress. We join the focus group at a point where its
members are responding to the interviewer’s question of who, in this group, had been
included in a list of talented managers. They begin by speaking within the critical/resist-
ant discourse, and within a few minutes switch to critical/managerialist discourse. It
will be seen that the style of speaking is very different from that within the rational/
managerialist discourse. People make short statements, interrupt each other, use far
fewer personal pronouns, and there is lots of laughter. This means that rather than ana-
lyse each speaker separately we now explore exchanges that invoke different discourses,
and thereby gaining more insight into how interpellative calls work within language.
A male manager starts the discussion by making a strong statement that asserts two

M.1 I (i1) don’t know if I (i-name) am on the
pool or not, I (i1) don’t think so.
F. 1 So we are not on.
F. 2 I (i1) am. I (i-name) am. And hence my
comment earlier about it puts
you (y1) in a difficult position if someone
says ‘you (y1) are an aspiring director
aren’t you (y1)?’
And this was a conversation at the meeting
I (i1) was at, wasn’t it? Were you (y2) at
that one? [To another female speaker
who murmurs assent: mm] So I (i1) just
nodded.
  [Laughter]
F. 3 I (i2) think organizationally there is the
assumption that everybody wants to, you
know, (y3) move up the ladder.
i1 is the agentive placeholder in the
present moment. I-name is specific to
this study: a person’s name on a list that
s/he equates with him/herself.
First person plural – individual identity
lost within that of the focus group
Although this would appear to be the
agentive placeholder I, the speaker
distances herself from her name on a list
– the i-name.
y1 – first person singular, a self separate
and distinct from the placeholding I.
i1 is the place-holding I, in which i1 is
separated from the name on the list that
would otherwise signify her.
Laughter presaging a critical comment.
i2 is the (theorizing) placeholder I
developing a theory.
You know: seeks or demands agreement
from listeners.

versions of the ‘I’: i1 is the placeholding I considering another ‘I’, signified by a name
on a list (i-name). The list catalogues those identified as talented and put forward for
promotion: it is therefore of itself an interpellative actor. The second speaker attempts to
unify the group (none of us are on the list). The third speaker has to correct her; but she
1226 Human Relations 67(10)

distances herself from having been named – she makes it clear that as a member of the
focus group (y1) her identity is separate and distinct from the name on the list. We are
not told why being named puts her in a difficult position, but what is interesting is her
resistance to the interpellative call (to be a talented manager) and the manner of her
resistance. That is, she recalls herself in her managerial subject position (y1) as una-
ble to speak – she could only nod. But the self in the focus group, referred to as I (i1)
can discuss its discomfort. The change in personal pronoun use signals here that the
speaker has moved out of the rational/managerialist discourse into one that can use
language of resistance – what we refer to as the critical/resistant discourse. Empathetic
laughter greets her statement and others move in to support her stance. The inter-
viewer then asked what it must be like to be regarded as untalented, to which the male

Male 1 That is the untalented pool. [Laughter]

Female 1 It is very subjective isn’t it? [Yes – another female speaker] Because at the
meeting we were at and there was this list that the chief exec and the
chair had pulled together [speaking very seriously to this point] and then
[laughs] and he sort of went through it and we, [lots of laughter, with the
speaker briefly almost unable to continue for laughing] sort of, we all went,
oooh noooo. [Lots of laughter]
Female 2 How have you (O – the Other) got that one on there?
Female 1 Yeah, there are people.
Female 3 So yes there are . . . it is very subjective isn’t it?
Male 1 That is the problem isn’t it? Who is making the rules up, who is talented or
not?

speaker responded:
There are two major aspects in this short sequence that encapsulate the appearance of
the critical/resistant voice throughout the transcripts. First, there is no ‘I’ or ‘you’ here –
it is all spoken in the third person. There is, significantly, the first person plural ‘we’,
used by the first female speaker. The written word does not capture how she suddenly
switched from speaking seriously into laughter that almost silences her. She uses ‘we’ to
signify a group identity in which all share the same (critical) voice. Second, laughter
precedes and accompanies the critical/resistant voice; this occurs throughout the focus
group discussions. Research has shown that laughter in organizations has a subversive
character (Westwood, 1994). It contests organizational power relations (Dwyer, 1991)
and facilitates resistance (Collinson, 2003; Gabriel, 1995; Learmonth, 2009). Here we
see it in another role, that of enabling ways of speaking critically. We suggest laughter
permits the group members to be disparaging of the demands placed upon them, but the
individual ego disappears into a collective ‘we’ that shares responsibility for transgress-
ing managerial norms. The organization that is imbricated within the identity of middle
managers when using the rational/managerialist voice is here separate and distinct, as
signalled by a ‘you’ that, we suggest, refers to the organization as a separate and distinct
Other from which the speaker seeks some distance. Organizational identity is replaced
Harding et al. 1227

by a group identity, one that is articulated through the critical/resistant discourse and that
rebuffs that interpellative hail (hey you, you middle manager) and thus refuses the nor-
mative identity of middle manager.
There is little evidence of active resistance in this study: resistance is passive save for
its agentive role in constituting an identity that contradicts the normative managerial
identity. This is somewhat different from studies that have found middle managers
actively challenging senior managers’ plans (Courpasson et al., 2012; Zoller and
Fairhurst, 2007), an issue we will explore below.

The third discourse and movement between discourses

As the laughter died down, speakers switched into a further critical discourse, one that
shares organizational aims and objectives but is critical of how senior managers go about
achieving those aims; we call this the critical/managerialist voice. In this quote the fol-
lowing identities are seen: i1 (the agentive placeholder); i2 (the theorizing self); O (the

A Female 1: That is why I (i1) said I (i1)
found it very interesting . . . Because actually
there is maybe something to learn from
having that conversation because they have
clearly spotted something.
B Male 2: Yes, but
Female manager continues speaking: Yes,
but they (O) only see . . . they (O) don’t see
the full picture.
C Female 2: They (O) might just see a
glimmer.
Male 2: But that is why it has to come from
the line manager up doesn’t it, rather
Female 3: All they did is say here is an initial
list. Right now it is over to you. (y1) You
need to review that list, take people off if you
don’t agree, add people that aren’t on that
you think should be on at each level.
The introduction of i1, the agentive
placeholder, signals a move out of the
we-ness of the critical/resistant voice and
back into rational/managerialist.
She is interrupted by a brief statement
that shows agreement (yes) and
disagreement (but), which the speaker
repeats (Yes, but). This echo facilitates
the switch to critical/managerialist voice:
the ‘Yes’ accepts managerial norms, the
‘but’ questions them. Senior managers
are an anonymous ‘they’, the Other.
Such seemingly innocent words as ‘yes,
but’ call out to subjects who, in turning
to them, adopt a different subject
position in which they constitute a
different identity.
The critical/managerialist voice
dominates the discussion for a short
while as speakers explore how they think
the strategy should be put into practice.
Again, note the absence of the first
person. The only pronoun used, by the
third female speaker in this sequence, is
the first person ‘you’ being given orders
by senior management. The rational/
managerialist voice speaks through
the y1, which is the managerial subject
position, at this moment, in which a
managerial self is given orders and thus
interpellated as a middle manager.
(Continued)
1228 Human Relations 67(10)

(Continued)

D Male 1: And I think (i2) we’ve queried calls
from above in the past haven’t we (y2)?
Female 1: This is anonymous isn’t it?
[Laughter]
Male 1: So I (i2) think there is big risk
[Interrupted by laughter]
Female 2: Can you email when you’ve wiped
that?
Male 1: That bit around whether your (y1)
face fits or not, flavour of the month.
Female 3: Whatever, those types.
Female 4: Oh yes, there is a massive culture
of that.
The introduction of i2, the theorizing
self, followed by the first person plural
that links the speakers as a group,
now instigates a switch to the critical/
managerialist discourse that speaks
through the ‘we’ (y2 – those here
present) and thus an anonymous perhaps
protective group identity.
But the re-introduction of the anonymity
of the ‘we’ allows a speaker to make a
joke that opens the door to return of the
critical/resistant voice, one unleashed by
laughter. In making a joke greeted by lots
of laughter, this female speaker positions
the group as rebels, allowing for more
laughter and joking, but also statements
that are highly critical of policies that,
when speaking in rational/managerialist
voice, they whole-heartedly upheld. At
the same time, the male speaker starts
to develop a theory (I think) that uses
critical/managerialist voice (there is big
risk in identifying the wrong people as
talented). But ‘risk’ has a dual meaning
(it is risky to identify the wrong people/
criticize senior managers). The duality of
meaning facilitates his switch to critical/
resistant voice, as he introduces the
‘face fits’ discussion. Females continue
speaking in the critical/resistant voice,
but then there is a long silence that was
interrupted by the interviewer wishing to
move the discussion on.

anonymous organizational Other); y1 (the managerial subject position); y2 (those here

present in the room).
The analysis in the right hand side of this table shows how personal pronouns can call
subjects out of one subject position and into another, as can seemingly innocent, every-
day phrases such as ‘yes, but’, or words that can summon up two or more interpretations.
We thus see in action Butler’s theory (1997b) of interpellative calls circulating within
discourses. Again we see how individual identity disappears into a collective identity:
within the rational/managerialist discourse organization and managerial subject merge;
within the more critical discourses the managerial subject separates itself from the organ-
izational Other and merges with the group. In this second part of the data analysis, we
have seen how swiftly and easily speakers move into and out of two discourses each of
which is critical of, and resistant to, the rational/managerialist discourse. Participants
Harding et al. 1229

now want to resist a senior managerial interpellative call that seems irresistible when in
the presence (real or remembered) of senior managers. When none are present, laughter
facilitates the ability to speak using discourses of resistance. We saw above that the
rational/managerialist discourse is fragile: here we see that it can be swiftly undermined
by a joke, a word or a phrase. In summary, analysis of the critical/resistant and critical/
managerialist discourses casts light on how interpellations operate within circulating
discourses, in this case to constitute resistant identities.
The critical/managerialist discourse outlined here is accepting of organizational aims
but questions senior managers’ abilities in achieving those aims, whereas the critical/
resistant discourse offers only passive resistance. There are hints that middle managers
using these discourses may constitute an agentive identity that may sometimes be openly
critical: the male speaker above states that they have queried managerial decisions in the
past. We are told little about these occasions so do not know how major were the queries
nor whether the decisions were changed. Kunda (1992: 221) found similar movement
between contradictory ‘voices’ in his study of a company that overtly set out to manage
its culture. Managers evinced what he calls ‘sociological ambivalence’, that is, not only
conforming with management’s preferred ‘ideology’, but also struggling with it, such
that they evinced ‘an ambivalent, fluctuating, ironic self, at war with itself and with its
internalized images of self and other’ (1992: 221). They, like the managers in our study,
resisted only passively. We can illuminate how speakers may move from passive resist-
ance (speaking critically within the security of a group) to action through turning to the
studies by Courpasson et al. (2012) and Zoller and Fairhurst (2007) that illuminate ways
in which middle managers organize active resistance when they feel driven to it, and then
weaving together the findings of this study with theirs.
Courpasson et al. (2012: 81) studied how middle managers participate in what they
call ‘productive resistance’, that is, a form of protest that develops outside of institutional
channels and

. . . is concerned with concrete activities that aim to voice claims and interests that are usually
not taken into account by management decisions. Its goal is to foster the development of
alternative managerial practices that are likely to benefit the organization as a whole.

They explored two examples of ‘temporary enclaves’ of managerial resistance, in

each of which a leader emerged who was able to gather support such that the power rela-
tionships in the organizations were temporarily changed. Zoller and Fairhurst’s (2007)
task is specifically to explore the role of leadership in managerial resistance. In
re-reading other studies, they argue that leadership is important in coalescing individual
and covert resistance into powerful, albeit temporary, organizational coalitions that can
speak truth to power. In our terms, the managers studied by Courpasson et al. (2012) and
Zoller and Fairhurst (2007) used the critical/managerialist discourse – they wished to
challenge senior managers but not to change the entire system.
What can we learn from comparing the activism of those managers with the passive
resistance we have seen in this study? Our research suggests that the potential for resist-
ance may be present for much of the time because it is an aspect of middle managerial
identity. However, it remains no more than a potential unless and until an issue arises, as
1230 Human Relations 67(10)

in Courpasson et al.’s (2012) and Zoller and Fairhurst’s (2007) studies, that so enrages or
offends middle managers that leaders emerge who can turn passive or potential resist-
ance into active (and productive) resistance. In the terms used in this study, passive
resistance (that is, covert, unorganized and not leading to any action other than talk)
becomes active through an interpellative call that summons a middle manager into a
leadership position from which s/he can summon colleagues into an actively resistant
role, what we might call actively critical/managerialist. Without such a leader, this study
suggests, colleagues’ interpellative calls instigate an identity that finds enjoyment in each
other’s passively subversive company.

Discussion
Through drawing on Butler’s distinction between the place-holding self and subjects
within constitutive subject positions, we have seen that the place-holding self, the ‘I’,
moves into and between various managerial subject positions each constituted within
discourses (here, the rationalist/managerialist, critical/managerialist and critical/resist-
ant). Middle managerial selves are constituted that are ek-static to the place-holding ‘I’,
such that non-managerial identity can sometimes be seen to be very different from the
identity within the managerial subject position. To say that middle managerial identity is
mutative and heterogeneous is to say little that is new: the more critical literature on mid-
dle managerial identities concludes very similarly (Thomas and Linstead 2002; Thomas
and Davies, 2005a; Watson 1994, 1996). However, our analysis goes further than previ-
ous studies in developing understanding of the complexities and contradictions of move-
ment between subject positions.
Through applying Butler’s development of Althusser’s model of interpellation, we
have suggested that the rational/managerialist call from a senior managerial or organiza-
tional Other interpellates an identity that entails fusion between organization and man-
ager. When the interpellating call is collegial, the place-holding self turns to occupy
subject positions located within resistant discourses (two of which we identified in this
study). Everyday language and interactions are imbued with interpellative calls: nouns
and verbs may do interpellative duty, as may words with multiple or ambiguous mean-
ings: if we can be said to swim in discourse then we swim in interpellation. When the call
comes in the form of a joke or a sleight of words, speakers turn and in turning become
critically resistant; if it comes in the form of a strategy, speakers turn and become ration-
alist/managerialist. The same ‘I’ can espouse contradictory ideas as s/he moves between
subject positions.
This takes us back to the question that motivated this study: what is the identity of the
middle manager? Who is this subject that moves between subject positions that become
available only because of the hierarchical space between senior management and junior
staff? Current literature, as we discussed above, defines middle managers as those who
occupy a particular part of the organizational hierarchy, in which they face upwards to
senior management and downwards to junior staff. One of their tasks, numerous authors
argue, is to ensure that junior staff fulfil organizational requirements: the middle man-
ager must exercise control over junior staff. To be a middle manager is therefore to be a
controller. However, this study has shown that the very rational/managerialist discourse
Harding et al. 1231

that prescribes the norms of middle managerial actions (as controller) not only instigates
the identity of middle manager as controller, but it also governs and controls (aspects of)
middle managerial identity. That is, the middle managerial subject is limited in the ways
it can think, speak and act; middle managers are therefore controlled by the very dis-
course that gives them the power to exercise control over others. Middle managers are
therefore both controllers and controlled. And at the same time middle managers (speak-
ing within and through the critical/managerialist and critical/resistant discourse) in some
ways resist those controls so are resisters. Furthermore, as controllers they face resist-
ance from staff, so are resisted. The middle manager is therefore at once controller,
controlled, resister and resisted. This is our answer to the question of who is the middle
manager: the middle manager is a person whose identity moves between the subject posi-
tions of controller, controlled, resister and resisted. We turn now to theories of control
and resistance to tease out the implications of this conclusion.

Conclusion: Middle managerial identity – controller,

controlled, resister and resisted
Control and resistance are foundational concepts in critical approaches to management
and organizations (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002; Fleming and Spicer, 2008). The tradi-
tional understanding has been of a dominant, managerial power that faces resistance
from a subordinate, worker power. Here, control and resistance are seen as dichotomous,
with each treated independently from the other. However, although contemporary formu-
lations tend to retain the legacy of this binary model (Ashcraft, 2005: 70), recent theories
question such a distinct opposition (Collinson, 2005). Control and resistance have come
to be understood as dialectical; that is, unstable categories that are ‘mutually implicative
and coproductive’ (Mumby, 2005: 21): each evoked by and implicated within the other.
As Thomas and Davies (2005a: 700) suggest, resistance reifies and produces that which
is being resisted, through carving it out as a space for political contest and thus legitimiz-
ing it. Similarly, the position that one discrete group of actors practises control and
another resistance has given way to an understanding that social actors engage in both
(Knights and Vurdubakis, 1994). Thus, ‘everyone who participates in discursive activity
engages in control and resistance, sometimes simultaneously’ (Aschcraft, 2005: 72), or,
as Kondo (1990: 224) describes it, subjects ‘consent, cope and resist at different levels of
consciousness at a single point in time’. Poststructural theorists regard control and resist-
ance as polysemic, shifting and unstable (Ashcraft, 2005). Resistance (to which we add,
control) is understood to be constitutive of identity: it is ‘not only oppositional and a
negative kicking back against the subjectivity offered but also a critical and ultimately
generative reflexive process’ (Thomas and Davies, 2005b: 727). The same subject can
therefore both resist and reproduce dominant systems of control (Sotirin and Gottfried,
1999), such that middle managers’ identities may be constituted within tactics of resist-
ance to the strategies they are required to implement (Thomas and Davies 2005a, 2005b).
What our study adds that is new to understanding both of control and resistance and
middle managerial identity is the understanding that managerial identity work involves
movement between subject positions in which they are subjects not only of control and
resistance, but simultaneously become agents of control, subjects of control, objects of
1232 Human Relations 67(10)

resistance and resisters to those very controls. To draw out the implications of this we
need to break down ‘control’ and ‘resistance’ into their different aspects. That is: control
(verb), control (noun), controller (subject), and controlled (object); and resist (verb),
resistance (noun); resister (subject); and resisted (object). The controller enacts forms of
control that constitute the controlled, who in acting against those controls become
resister(s). In enacting forms of resistance, the resister constitutes the controller as the
one who is resisted. Control not only evokes resistance but also constitutes the identity
of the controller, who thus becomes governable (and hence controlled) by the very dis-
course of control. Finally, control induces not only practices of resistance, as dialectical
theories argue, but also the identity of resister.
A very simple model helps map these aspects of control and resistance to the three
positions of senior managers, staff and middle managers (and thus to definitions of mid-
dle management):

- senior managers control middle managers through requiring that middle managers
exercise control over staff. Senior managers are thus controllers (subjects) who
become resisted (object) if middle managers offer resistance;
- staff are controlled (object) but resist control. They are therefore resisters
(subjects);
- middle managers are controlled (object) by senior managers but must themselves
practise control so are controllers (subjects). They resist the controls placed on
them so are resisters (subject) but are resisted by staff so are resisted (object).

Thus, senior managers are controllers who are resisted and staff are resisters who are
controlled, but middle managers are unique in that they are controllers who are also con-
trolled, and resisters who are also resisted.
To put this into the context of the language we borrow from Butler: the identity of
‘middle manager’ is performatively constituted through the reiteration of the processes
of middle managerial tasks. But,

. . . performativity works, when it works, to counter a certain metaphysical presumption about

culturally constructed categories and to draw our attention to the diverse mechanisms of that
construction . . . that produce ontological effects, that is, that work to bring into being certain
kinds of realities. (Butler, 2010: 147, emphasis added)

In other words, the middle managerial subject in performatively constituting the self
as subject and object of both control and resistance (in subject positions governed by
such discourses as identified in this study) constitutes a major distinction between senior
managers, staff and themselves. Thus, the middle managerial identity, in incorporating
controller, controlled, resister and resisted, in looking upwards to senior managers and
downwards to junior staff, constitutes organizational hierarchy. This calls to mind a
classic Foucauldian move, developed further by Butler, whereby the law produces that
which it addresses. Thus, rather than the person becoming a middle manager through
being slotted into a position in the organization, the middle manager performatively
Harding et al. 1233

constitutes that very hierarchy. Through being ‘in the middle’, the middle manager inter-
pellates some as ‘senior’ and others as ‘junior’, calling to each from their various sub-
jects positions of controlled, resister, controller and resisted.
We end with a caveat that leads to a call for more research. This study is located in a
large, public sector organization in the United Kingdom where managers, many of whom
began their careers as members of the medical and health professions, are responsible for
managing members of powerful professions. The constitution of managerial identities
outlined here may be in some ways peculiar to such conditions. Further studies are needed
that explore middle managers responsible for managing different types of staff, or in con-
ditions governed by the pursuit of profit rather than fulfilling a public service ethos.

Acknowledgements
We would like to express our grateful thanks to Dr Dimi Stoyanova, of St Andrews University,
who carried out much of the fieldwork for this study.

Funding
This research was funded by the National Health Service. For reasons of anonymity the specific
organization cannot be named. No grant number was supplied.

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Nancy Harding is Professor of Organization Theory at the University of Bradford’s School of

Management, UK. She grew up in a coal-mining community and worked as a typist and on the
lines in a factory before becoming a mature university student. Her doctoral grant helped support
her family through the miners’ strike of 1984–1985. Those experiences from the first half of her
life inform her academic research and writing. She is the author of two monographs that explore
the social construction (very loosely defined) of the manager (Routledge, 2003) and the employee
(Routledge, 2013), with a third book on the social construction of the organization in the planning
Harding et al. 1237

stage. She has co-authored two books and is working on a third co-authored book with Marianna
Fotaki. She has published more than 20 papers in the usual journals, but the achievement that won
her her most valued plaudits has been obtaining tickets for her grandsons to see Manchester United
play Chelsea in the winter of 2012. [Email: n.h.harding@bradford.ac.uk]
Hugh Lee is Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour and Business Ethics at the University of
Bradford’s School of Management, UK. His research interests are in the fields of comparative eth-
ics, identity, diversity and relationships at work. He has a particular interest in bringing philosophi-
cal perspectives to understanding organizations, and hopes one day to write something significant
from an ethical perspective about difference, similarity, diversity, discrimination, toleration and
understanding. He has published papers in Human Relations, Public Administration and Journal
of Health Organization and Management. [Email: H.Lee4@bradford.ac.uk]
Jackie Ford is Professor of Leadership and Organization at Leeds University Business School, UK.
Her research interests include the study of working lives, notably in exploring critical approaches
to leadership, gender, management and organization studies. She has co-authored Leadership as
Identity: Constructions and Deconstructions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); co-edited Making
Public Services Management Critical (Routledge, 2010) and has published in journals including
British Journal of Management, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Leadership,
Management Learning, Organization and Sociology. [Email: j.m.ford@leeds.ac.uk]